I've been reading a couple of tumblr's on the FTM tag in regards to a couple of trans* service members. One of them got outed accidentally by a buddy. Even if you are trying to go stealth, and not let anyone know you are trans*, sometimes you just get outed by bad circumstances, and ill informed folks.

Hell, just the other day, a classmate in my management class just asked me outright if testosterone shots hurt. So even well meaning allies will sometimes not understand, and out you.

So to my mind, "don't tell" doesn't work so well when others will tell.

"They used to, said it made you a security risk. Which was silly, because it was the practice of firing homosexuals that made them vulnerable to blackmail in the first place. So these days they just insist on openness--the theory is you can only be blackmailed if you're hiding something. Which is why the Brain gets the day off for Gay Pride to maintain his security clearance."

Feel free to explain that because I'm pretty sure you haven't actually thought out what you;re trying to say and it's going wander off into a number of entertaining tangents that conflict with your fabulous self image.

This is one of those moments when the advice given might be best held close to your own breast.

Lucky for you I'm in a generous mood. Regards specific groups of people, it does them no good to build a mythology around them. Every autistic kid is not a latent genius, every physically challenged person is not an inspirational role model whose story should be a Lifetime movie, every mentally ill person is not harmless. In terms of self identifying groups, every slob with an AK-47 is not a "patriot" etc. At a company, everyone is the sheet metal division is not "one big family." Too often, people that push these ideas are enablers who allow their friends to go down the drain, or they actively help a very destructive friend send other people down the drain, and the enabler get to be the spectator or perpetrator at an ongoing clusterfuck of destruction that often spans years. When someone says everyone in the sheet metal division just amazing and above scrutiny, it's pretty much a given that people are doing things like systematically stealing or shipping dangerously defective products.. It means things have gone way beyond the point of no return.